Car thefts increased dramatically in Lake Country last year.
Image Credit: ADOBE STOCK
June 24, 2019 - 4:16 PM
LAKE COUNTRY - Crime spiked in Lake Country in 2018 compared to 2017, but illegal activity on average stayed below the 2016 numbers.
The recently released Lake Country annual report for 2018 is available for public consumption and the document contains a section dedicated to crime statistics in the district during 2018. If you've had a sense that Lake Country is more crime-filled than it was the year before, you're not wrong.
The report stated there were 617 total offences in Lake Country in 2018, up 89 from 528 offences in 2017. It's quite the leap, although both years paled in comparison to the 665 offences in 2016.
While the offences were up this year, calls to the Lake Country RCMP detachment for service have been trending downward for three years, going from 3871 in 2016 to 3825 in 2017 then to 3786 in 2018.
While there may have been fewer calls, crimes such as theft certainly haven't stopped. 2018 might become known as the year of car thefts in Lake Country, as the district went from 15 motor vehicle thefts in 2017 to a staggering 40 in 2018, a number that easily dwarfs the 18 car thefts in 2016.
Local businesses typically suffer from increased crime levels and Lake Country was no exception. There were 26 break-ins at businesses in 2018, up from 10 in the previous year. There were also 30 residential break-ins last year compared to 22 in 2017.
Property offences in general spiked in 2018, going from 379 in 2017 to 453.
It's not all doom and gloom; one of the few decreases in 2018 was in Controlled Drugs and Substances Act offences, which went from 27 in 2017 to 20.
In the report, RCMP stated their goals in 2019 include reducing property-related crimes, domestic abuse files and fatal car collisions. According to the report, Lake Country has seen no fatal car collisions in 2016, 2017 or 2018.
The full report can be found here.
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News from © iNFOnews, 2019